Cervical cancer is one of the most common malignancies affecting women worldwide, seriously affecting their health and quality of life. Anlotinib is a novel oral small molecule multi-target receptor tyrosinase inhibitor developed in China. It can effectively inhibit kinases such as VEGFR, PDGFR, FGFR and stem cell growth factor receptor (c-Kit), with anti-angiogenic and anti-tumor effects(Guanghua and Yu 2022, Lin et al. 2018). The results of this study showed that anlotinib had a significant inhibitory effect on Siha/DDP cell viability, and the higher the concentration, the more pronounced the inhibitory effect on Siha/DDP cell viability. Apoptosis is a self-regulated mode of cell death in living organisms, and its normal functioning affects all life activities in the human body(Chaudhry et al. 2022). The tumorigenic process is a complex combination of changes in normal cell proliferation capacity and apoptotic imbalance. The number of clones formed by Siha/DDP cells gradually decreased and the total apoptosis rate increased significantly with increasing doses of anlotinib. Bcl-2 gene plays an active role in cell death(Qian et al. 2022). Bax is primarily involved in the intrinsic apoptotic signaling pathway and, when activated, aggregates from the cytoplasm to the outer mitochondrial membrane, prompting mitochondrial production of cytochrome C and activating downstream proteins that initiate the apoptotic process(Peng et al. 2020). The pro-apoptotic protein Bax triggers the activation of the intrinsic pathway, which is an excellent target for the development of therapeutic agents that are currently in clinical trials. Cell cycle regulation is achieved by cell cycle proteins in each phase of the cell cycle, among which P21, Cyclin and CDKs are important factors involved in cell cycle regulation. P21 is an oncogene that inhibits cell division and prevents cells from entering S phase from G1 phase through CDK (Meirong and kuanyong 2018, Li-yun et al. 2021). Meanwhile, polymorphisms of P21 gene are associated with tumor susceptibility and can coordinate the relationship between DNA repair, replication and cell cycle(Bingnan et al. 2022). CyclinB1 and CDK1 are core proteins that regulate the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. At the end of S phase, CyclinB1 binds to CDK1 as a regulatory subunit and acts as a mitotic promoter, driving the transition from G2 to M phase(Lizhen 2009). The results of this study showed that the number of cells in the G0/G1 phase and the number of cells in the G2/M phase were significantly reduced and increased after treatment of different doses of anlotinib. The immunoblotting results also showed that the levels of Bax and P21 proteins were significantly increased, and the expression of CDK1, Bcl-2 and CyclinB1 proteins were significantly decreased after the effect of anlotinib. These results indicated that anlotinib could inhibit the proliferation and promote the apoptosis of Siha/DDP cells.
In patients with cervical cancer, treatment failure is also attributed to a variety of ways in which tumor cells can metastasize and spread to adjacent and distant organs, causing cancerous lesions. In this study, we found that the inhibition of cell migration and invasion increased with increasing doses of anlotinib. Epithelial-mesenchymal transformation (EMT) is the loss of epithelial properties of tumor cells and the acquisition of mesenchymal properties, mainly in the form of reduced expression of the epithelial marker E-cadherin, which is closely associated with tumor invasion and metastasis and plays an important role in resistance to many antitumor drugs(Jing and Mao 2022). The growth and metastasis of malignant tumors depend on the formation of new blood vessels. VEGF is a class of cell-secreted growth factors that stimulates the formation of blood vessels and lymphatic microtubules, and plays an important role when tissue oxygenation is insufficient(Chuai et al. 2021). Matrix metalloproteinase is an endopeptidase activity that degrades proteins in the extracellular matrix, and its expression affects tumor development(Sidorkiewicz et al. 2019). MMP-9 can damage collagen in the basement membrane of the blood vessels surrounding type IV tumor cells to spread to surrounding tissues and promote metastasis(Kang et al. 2022). VEGF and MMP-9 are expressed at high levels in cervical cancer, and the higher the serum VEGF and MMP-9 levels, the worse the prognosis of patients. The results of this study showed that anlotinib intervention significantly upregulated E-cadherin protein expression and inhibited VEGF and MMP-9 protein expression. This indicates that anlotinib can inhibit the invasion and migration of Siha/DDP cells. Cervical cancer cells can develop resistance to cisplatin in several ways, including reducing cisplatin uptake and increasing efflux, counteracting the effects of cisplatin on DNA and inhibiting apoptotic signaling pathways. P-gp is an adenosine triphosphate-dependent transmembrane transport protein, and the higher the amount of P-gp in the body, the more likely it is that cancer cells will develop resistance to the drug(Xin-xin et al. 2021, Zhang et al. 2012). In this study, we found that the P-gp protein content in Siha/DDP cells was significantly reduced after treatment with anlotinib, which showed that anlotinib could effectively reduce the drug resistance ability of Siha/DDP.
The research and development of anticancer drugs has traditionally been a major issue in the medical field, due to the fact that the understanding of the mechanisms of cancer development is still very limited(Chao et al. 2020). Through our study, we found that the proliferation, invasion, and migration abilities of Siha/DDP cells were significantly reduced after treatment by anlotinib. To initially explore the mechanisms causing this altered biological function of cervical cancer cells, we sequenced the transcriptome and performed bioinformatic analysis of RNA-seq data. The results showed that the gene expression of Siha/DDP cells was altered after anlotinib intervention, and a total of 787 differential genes were obtained, of which 398 were up-regulated and 389 were down-regulated, suggesting that anlotinib may mediate the biological function of cervical cancer cells by regulating these identified differential genes, thereby inhibiting the development of cervical cancer. Based on the above studies, we further investigated the biological processes and related pathways associated with these differential genes. The GO analysis showed that these genes were mainly enriched in the regulation of ERK1 and ERK2 cascade, collagen-containing extracellular matrix, DNA packaging complex nucleosomes, protein-DNA complex cellular composition, protein heterodimerization molecular function, cholesterol biosynthesis process, ERK1 and ERK2 cascade reaction and steroid biosynthesis and metabolism process, etc. The above results suggest that anlotinib may be involved in different biological processes by regulating different differential genes and performing multiple molecular functions to inhibit the malignant development of cervical cancer. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that these differential genes were mainly enriched in neutrophil extracellular traps, alcoholism, systemic lupus erythematosus, steroid biosynthesis, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and cancer-related signaling pathways. Anlotinib may activate or inhibit the above biological pathways by regulating different differential genes, thus inhibiting the abnormal biological activity of cervical cancer cells. Four key modules were screened using the MCODE plug-in in cytoscape, and five key core genes, namely SQLE, MSMO1, LSS, FDFT1 and HMGCS1, were screened. Multiple studies have shown that the functions of these five genes are closely related to the development of cervical cancer.